Leibniz Cheat Sheet (DRAFT) by faminconnue

Leibniz was interested in both ancient and modern concerns:
- renais­sance philos­ophy: mainly Plato on knowledge, the Aristo­telian causes, orthodox Christ­ianity and schola­stics
- modern research: Huygens corpus­cul­ar-­mec­hanical natural philos­ophy, and Malebr­ance's occasi­onalism

The "­why­" are questions such as:
- why is there something and nothing?
- why does God allow for evil?
- why do I do things?
everything that is can answer to the question of "­why­?"

Leibniz held onto principle of sufficient reason which states that everything must have a reason or cause
-> this cause are the Aristo­telian causes
-> "­nothing happens without reason­"

the existence of something can be explained through the Aristo­telian causes:
- material cause (wood)
- formal cause (design)
- efficient cause; a mechanism (carpe­ntry)
- final cause; function (dining)
example: a table

the "­why­?"is the efficient cause: that which causes another thing to happen

God is:
- perfection
-> what exists in the highest measure: knowledge, power, morality
-> is not: number and extension (contr­adi­ction), nor is something perfect simply because it exists (Anselmus)
- beneficent
- all-po­werful and good: he sustains everything that should be (Desca­rtes) -> god has the highest sense
- omnisc­ient: sees from every perspe­ctive
- creator of the best of all possible worlds, and the reason of all existence

according to Leibniz:
- we gain as a tabula rasa: an individual born as a black slate (as did Aristotle, Avicenna, Aquinas, Locke)
- empirical natural philosophy is not wrong per se, but incomplete
empiricism is all about mechanism and extension

Leibniz keeps asking "why does that happen if it could be differ­ent­?"

why is there evil?
according to Leibniz, non-God substances have a limited perspe­ctive, and evil exists only from our perspe­ctive
It is this limitation that causes evil, as God chooses the best being to come to be, and only the highest beings have freedom.
-> this highest being is the most similar to God, both in perspe­ctive and reflection on perspe­ctive
basically, evil is our own fault

according to Leibniz, miracles and coinci­dences depart from the general will, and they only exist from our limited perspe­ctive

He states that we have a limited perspe­ctive on things, if we could see every perspe­ctive then we would come to see that there are no miracles and coinci­dences but due to the limited perspe­ctive we perceive them as such
-> which is why we believe in miracles and coinci­dences

But, everything is in order, everything has its reasons, God choose the most perfect order and so no miracles or coinci­dences exist
-> if there were miracles and things that do not fit in our world then our world would not be able to exist

= something that does not rely on something else for its unders­tanding
-> contains everything that occurs to it is harmonious with but does not interact with other substances
“[W]hen several predicates are attributed to the same subject, and this subject is not attributed to any other, it is called an individual substa­nce.”

qualities:
- indivi­sible: they can only be created or destroyed (by God)
- are completely certain
- are unaffected by other substances
- they seem to relate
- occasi­ona­lism: substances are no efficient causes of each other (God determines substances to be in harmony)

-> when harmony substances are:
- omniscient (every­thing is contained in them)
- all-po­werful (they help determine every limited substance)
- similar to God

Necessity means that something is either a contra­diction or a rational possib­ility

God determines the actuality of possib­ility by choosing the best option and thereby determines who will freely choose in the best way
-> so freewill as providence (guided by God)
God created you and knew what you were going to do, and you still did it, so it is still your respon­sib­ility, God did not make you do something, but just knew
-> we can still be blamew­orthy for our actions